RIAA trial verdict is in: jury finds Thomas liable for infringement

After less than four hours of deliberations, a federal jury in Duluth, …

Duluth, Minnesota — After just four hours of deliberation and two days of testimony, a jury found that Jammie Thomas was liable for infringing the record labels' copyrights on all 24 the 24 recordings at issue in the case of Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas. The jury awarded $9,250 in statutory damages per song, after finding that the infringement was "willful," out of a possible total of $150,000 per song. The grand total? $222,000 in damages.

After the verdict was announced, Thomas and her attorney Brian Toder quickly left the courtoom. Toder offered a terse "no comment" when asked if Thomas had any intention to appeal the case. The jury was also in no mood to talk to the media, choosing instead to be escorted out of the courthouse by court personnel, ignoring the battery of television cameras and TV reporters at the foot of the courthouse steps.

The plaintiffs' legal team spent a few minutes talking to the jury after the verdict was announced, finally emerging from the courthouse to take questions from the media. The first question asked of Gabriel was whether the RIAA would enforce and try to collect the judgment. Gabriel replied that he hadn't had the chance to talk to the client about that yet. He said that the jury did not explain how they arrived at the $9,250 figure, but that they expressed to the legal team that the case was "clear and well-presented."

Gabriel also noted the magnitude of the case in response to a question. "We appreciate the opportunity to put out in daylight the facts and evidence collected in this case," he replied. "This does send a message, we hope, that both downloading and distributing music is not ok." When asked if there was an end game in sight for the series of lawsuits, Gabriel said that it was up to the RIAA to decide.

RIAA lead counsel Richard Gabriel
addressing the media after
the verdict was announced

Defense closing arguments

Before the deliberations began, counsel for both parties presented their closing arguments. Thomas' attorney, Brian Toder, went first (per court rules). Speaking forcefully and only referring to his notes rarely, he took 15 minutes to make his points. He started off by repeating his assertion from the opening arguments that the defendant was in a "tough role" given what the jurors had heard and seen in the courtroom. "There are certainly alternative explanations, because my client didn't do it," he told the jury. "Someone used her name and IP address—it's not impossible."

Toder then reminded the jury that they have the burden of "proving that Jammie Thomas was the human being calling herself 'tereastarr' doing all of this."

Toder then turned to the RIAA's witnesses, beginning with Mark Weaver of SafeNet. "He's a stand-up guy," Toder told the jury. "But he never once said that Jammie Thomas did this—just tereastarr at an IP address." He then moved on to David Edgar, manager of Charter's Internet security department and noted that he didn't testify that the MAC address from the cable modem rented to Thomas identified a specific computer.

Toder then turned his attention to the RIAA's expert witness, Dr. Doug Jacobson. Calling him the plaintiff's expert a "hired gun," Toder said "I think you saw he was making things up as he went along." He focused on the debate over the presence of the songs on the hard drive examined by Jacobson, and argued that the defense proved definitively that Jacobson was "absolutely wrong" about his assertion that it would not have been possible to rip the songs on the hard drive from CD given the time stamps. He also argued that the notoriety from the case helped Jacobson's security business, Palisade Systems, and that the "five or six hours" Jacobson said he spent on the case means he could not have given it the time and attention it deserved.

Wrapping up his closing argument, Toder touched on the discrepancy in the dates given for the hard drive replacement, saying that it was an honest mistake, given that numerous dates in her deposition were a year off across the board. He then reminded the jury that MAC and IP addresses can be spoofed. "We can't prove it happened, but we don't have to." Toder concluded by saying that the plaintiffs did not meet their burden of proof and said that the jury doesn't have to award the record companies money in this trial "because they didn't earn it."

The RIAA's closing arguments

Richard Gabriel then presented the closing argument for the record labels. Gabriel first addressed Toder's remarks, saying that he talked about "theories and speculation" that have nothing to do with this case. After reminding the jury that they had seen nothing indicating that the record labels in the case were not the owners of the copyrights in question, Gabriel then ran through the record labels' evidence, "The real issue in this case is whether the defendant violated the record companies' exclusive rights," he said. "We don't have to prove who got the file from the defendant."

Gabriel ran through the screenshots showing the user tereastarr@KaZaA and then showed other instances of her using the same screenname online. "All the fingers in this case point to Jammie Thomas," he argued. He ticked off the evidence of the MAC and IP addresses, a password-protected PC that only the defendant had access to, use of the tereastarr nickname across several services and e-mail accounts across the years, and the "eclectic musical tastes" of Thomas that he said were reflected both on the hard drive and in the shared folder. "These things all point in one direction, and only one direction: that of Jammie Thomas," he said. "Jammie Thomas infringed the record companies' copyrighted recordings."

Gabriel concluded by telling the jury that Thomas doesn't respond to the evidence "because she can't." It's "misdirection, red herrings, and smoke and mirrors," he told the jury. He defended Weaver and Jacobson's testimony, wrapping up by saying that the "greater weight" shows that the defendant did it. "She refused to accept responsibility, so we come to you to ask you to hold her responsible," he said, asking the jury to find her liable and to consider the need for deterrence in awarding statutory damages.

With that, the jury instructions were read into the record and the jury filed out to begin deliberations.

One down, many more to go?

The first case has gone to trial, and the verdict is in. The music labels now have a notch on their belt, while a woman who spent thousands of dollars on their product is now faced with a large judgment.

The RIAA hopes that this and the 20,000 other cases serve as a deterrent to would-be file-sharers, but the question of whether or not the music industry is engendering so much hostility and bad press with its campaign that it outweighs any short-term benefits remains. With a verdict in their favor, the RIAA hopes to ratchet the campaign of fear up a notch and says it will press forward with its legal campaign.